Doubt in Favour of the Defendant, Guilty Beyond Reasonable Doubt Namely, in the case of Iljazi612 the applicant was charged for trying to bring into the country 9.5 kg of heroin, purchased from an unidentified seller in Istanbul, loaded into a cargo area of a truck which belonged to a company managed and owned by him. The national court found him guilty and convicted him with 5,3 years of imprisonment for illegal drug trafficking. The applicant claimed a violation of Article 6 § 3 (d) of ECHR because of the domestic courts’ refusal to admit the written statements and ensure presence at trial of witnesses S.B. and T.S., who had apparently stated that the applicant had neither been personally involved nor observed the loading of the goods into the truck. The applicant further submitted a copy of the statements, translated into Macedonian language, since those statements were being taken by Kosovo authorities (the point where the goods entered the country), on a request of the national authorities. The applicant claimed that by doing that the national court has wrongfully established the case facts. Although ECtHR reiterated that “the admissibility of evidence is primarily a matter that is regulated by national law”, and that the purpose of the Court is ”not to give a ruling as to whether statements of witnesses were properly admitted in evidence, but rather to ascertain whether the proceedings as a whole, including the way in which evidence was taken, were fair”, as well as that Article 6 § 3 (d) “does not require the attendance and examination of every witness on the accused’s behalf: its essential aim, as is indicated by the words ‘under the same conditions’, is a full ‘equality of arms’ in the matter”, the Court has found that “there might be exceptional circumstances which could prompt the Court to conclude that the failure to hear a person as a witness was incompatible with Article 6.”613 So, in this particular case the Court found violation of Article 6 §§ 1 and 3 (d) of the Convention since “in the absence of any direct evidence, the applicant should have been afforded a reasonable opportunity to challenge the assumption that he had loaded and hidden the drugs in the truck. The refusal to examine the defence witnesses, at least T.S., led to a limitation of the defence rights incompatible with the guarantees of a fair trial enshrined in Article 6.”614 Furthermore, in the case of Duško Ivanovski615 the applicant was sentenced to two and a half years of imprisonment for illegal drug trafficking. The applicant was searched on 04 February 2003, without a court warrant and in the absence of witnesses, as allowed by Law in exceptional circumstances. The police confiscated 13 keys and a mobile phone from him. On that same date, an investigating judge issued two warrants for search of two apartments and other accompanying premises owned by the applicant’s father (nos. 8 and 9 in the building in which the applicant Iljazi v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, no.56539/08, ECHR, 03.01.2014. Ibid, § 40. Ibid, § 47. 615 Duško Ivanovski v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, no. 10718/05, 24.07.2014. 612 613 614 132